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I looked up 1992 as a random example of a draft old enough where all the value from the first round picks had been realized.

It's total WAR for first round picks is currently at 286.5 WAR, a little over $1.4B in value at $5M/WAR, or $47M per pick.

But that's not the right way to measure their value since teams only control them for their first 6 MLB years. Using my interpretation of the Arbitration rules on the highest WAR players from that draft (since I don't have time to do all of them) it appears that 52% of their value came in their control years. At $5M/WAR, that works out to $25M per pick in value.

- I checked out the years immediately following and 286 WAR seems a bit higher than average (one was over 300 WAR though). My guess is average WAR is about 250 based on this small sample.

- The $25M in value doesn't account for Arbitration awards, but the impact is likely small. Less than half of the 1991 picks appeared to make it to arbitration awards, and the ones who did were likely producing lots of excess value. It might lower the value by 10-20% tops.

- The average first round pick is worth $20M at $5M/WAR if the average first round produces 130 WAR from the team control years of 30 picks and deducting 15% for Arb awards.

- This implies the average top 10 pick is worth probably $30M-$40M, if not more.

This implies the average top 10 pick is worth probably $30M-$40M, if not more.

Is average the best way to look at it? Wouldn't mean be a better gauge, one superstar can really throw the numbers off.

In that 1992 draft, you have 7 players from the first round who put up over a 10 war throughout their career. If you look at top ten, then you have two (Jeter and Phil Nevin) that were worth more than 10 war. If you are a team that doesn't get that value, and consistently miss that value how many years does it take for it to be worth the millions you throw out there before hitting on a quality player?

I looked up 1992 as a random example of a draft old enough where all the value from the first round picks had been realized.

It's total WAR for first round picks is currently at 286.5 WAR, a little over $1.4B in value at $5M/WAR, or $47M per pick.

Okay, but no one thought first round picks weren't a good deal.

I'm still curious about the total salaries for all these players as minor leaguers? What were the salaries for these players (and the first round picks, too) first six seasons? Back then were arb salaries anything like today's 40-60-80 (a close approximation)?